Welcome to Issue XII, Volume V: August 2014 of Connotation Press: An Online Artifact. This our 60th issue, 115th installment, and our year-end retrospective wherein our editorial staff takes a moment in their absurdly busy schedules to look back at some of the pieces they brought in for publication that, for whatever reason, stood out in their minds as especially interesting to revisit at this, the end of our fifth year of publication.
FIVE FREAKIN’ YEARS!!! WOOHOO!!! FIVE, FIVE, FIVE, FIVE, FIVE!!!!!
I once heard the great singer/song writer Dave Alvin say he couldn’t list the ten best songs ever written because he chooses not to think of creative art as best or worst, but he did say he could list “the top ten songs I wish I’d have written.” I like to think of this issue that way. EVERYONE we publish on Connotation Press is here for a reason. Someone on staff championed their work and cleared space to publish it, and ALL our authors are deserving of that publication. But maybe if you think of the artists we’re listing this month as those whose poems and stories are the ones we on the editorial staff wish we’d have written you can begin to get a sense of what we’re aiming for this and every August when we run our retrospective.
Before I get into the normal year-end statistics and state of the magazine stuff I usually do in August, I’ve got something fairly serious, at least to me, to discuss with you.
As I moved into the final stages of posting the last issue of the publishing year for Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, I found myself at a loss to make a decision I've been putting off for quite some time. It had gotten so bad that flipping a coin as a decision making process was taken off the table only yesterday. I suppose that's probably a lie. I'd probably already made the decision, but maybe it's just that I don't think I know how to live with it. Yes, maybe that's what I mean to write. I'm making changes in the magazine that will, in turn, make changes in my life and the lives of others, and I don't know, can't see a distinct and clear line, how to fully internalize this decision even though I’m certain I am making the right one.
For the run of Connotation Press I've deferred to a number of great thinkers, artists, those who seem to "get" life in a way that I have not, to guide my decisions— none more so that Fred Rogers. Don't laugh. It's true. Think about it. Wouldn't the world be a better place if more of us lived that way? If more of us believed “There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind" or “Some days, doing "the best we can" may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn't perfect on any front - and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else" or “Life is deep and simple, and what our society gives us is shallow and complicated."
I have, for the past five years, tried my best to keep Connotation Press "deep and simple." And regardless of how the changes I am implementing might seem like such a hullabaloo to me, the truth is to everyone else on the planet they are probably not.
With that said, starting in September at the launch of our Volume VI offerings, I am changing the publishing schedule of Connotation Press: An Online Artifact from 12 new issues with 23 installments per year to seven new issues with 13 installments per year. Our new publishing schedule will be:
The reasons for this decision are multi-faceted. They range from my health concerns, I live with epilepsy and its ramifications each day, and at 50 I am made aware of the slow decline in my abilities with each passing year; to the fact that those who love me want more time with me and I with them; to the general exhaustion publishing at our near bi-weekly five-year schedule has created within my team of editors.
Additionally, competing to fill a bi-weekly literature magazine with the proliferation of online lit boutiques, some that seem to disappear as fast as they arrive, for quality submissions is both absurd, and, quite frankly unproductive. And even though our bi-weekly format is hard to give up, to be perfectly honest, I don’t see that we have much left to prove. We did it. We did what every single person I spoke to said we couldn’t do. We created a bi-weekly online literary magazine that managed to become respected on a platform few felt ready for literature and even fewer felt had the potential for prestige. We did it nonstop, never missing a deadline for FIVE straight years and with an all-volunteer editorial staff. We did it without any funding whatsoever other than my retirement fund and monthly donation I make to pay for the website. We created a strong literary magazine that every day further digs its roots into the mainstream of established, quality publishing. We are considered one of the top journals on the planet by many people who openly sing our praises— authors who are often the heroes that compelled us to publish in the first place. The millions of page views and visitors we have received, regular readers from virtually every country in the world with internet, and our continued ability to draw the most talented and brightest authors demonstrate just how far we’ve come in the past five years.
Please don’t misunderstand, this change in our publishing schedule is not in response to any interest we have in closing Connotation Press: An Online Artifact. On the contrary, freeing up time by changing the publishing schedule will allow us more time to develop our print and film divisions. It will provide more time for our staff to focus on their own writing and give them more opportunity to work towards publication of their own work. It will make publication in Connotation Press even more of an accomplishment for our contributors as we will be publishing about half as many authors as we have in the past each year. And it will free up opportunities for our staff to interview more of those authors that make it through the now more rigorous standards for getting work published on the magazine.
And let’s not forget that we have published over the past five years: approximately 1163 poets in our Poetry, Congeries, and Featured Guest Editor Columns combined, 327 fiction authors, 266 creative nonfiction writers, and 55 dramatists, along with 64 book reviews, 22 featured artists, 44 travelogues, 23 video poetry offerings nearly all featuring multiple artists, 22 wine reviews, 15 artisan reviews, 18 Undergrads, 31 Essays on Art, 23 Movie Reviews, 37 months of Food writing featuring numerous guest writers along with eight episodes of our internet TV foodie show, “Spatula.” That amounts to well over 1833 published authors published along side 281 various column offerings other than creative writing since September 2009 when we launched.
To put this into context, here is a disturbingly short list of those we’ve published over the past five years, a list that represents only approximately 2.98 % of our total contributor count: Claudia Emerson, Tomaž Šalamun, Andrei Codrescu, Pablo Medina, David Lehman, Maxine Kumin, Campbell McGrath, Dorianne Laux, US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, Stanley Plumly, Jim Daniels, Stephen Dunn, Keetje Kuipers, Carl Dennis, Quincy Troupe, Nathalie Handal, David St. John, Andrew Tonkovich, Christopher Buckley, Mark Brazaitis, Frank X Walker, Oliver de la Paz, Ilya Kaminsky, Ralph Angel, Pat Pujolas, Jessica Keener, P.T. Paul, Joan Connor, Scott Campbell, Ed Weathers, Cary Holladay, Taylor Negron, Marka-Lewis Ryan, Sam Catlin, Ken Roht, Charles Evered, James Harms, Susan Straight, Frank Gaspar, Claudia Serea, 21State Laureates from around the country, and the late Allen Hoey.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, our submission page is now and will be always open as we will continue accepting submissions 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. We’re like Tom Bodett for Motel 6, we’ll leave a light on for ya!
And now, without further ado (yep, I just used ado in a sentence because it’s a word I use ALL the time in my daily f’ing language), let’s kick this retrospective pig and see what it’ll do!
Because this is a year-in-review issue, I will forgo listing everyone new to the issue because there are none. Instead, I’ll provide you some nice links to each of the editorial staff’s year-end review. However, there are a few things I need to do first.
Our fifth publishing year brought with it the release of our first single-author print collection. We broke out of the gates with a short fiction focus, the first by the brilliant and wildly prolific Len Kuntz. The Dark Sunshine is brilliant work. On first read I knew we were going to publish this collection, and Fiction Editor Meg Tuite championed it from the start. It is quite simply stunning. And when Deanne Richards gave us permission to use her artwork for the cover, we were bouncing off the walls. We still have a few copies of the first edition of The Dark Sunshine that we'd be happy to sell you. Follow the above link and it'll get you where you need to go. Thank you for the support, and we'll have a new series of printed books your way soon. Next up, a collection of poetry of wittness.
This past year we had two talented writers visit as guest editors. At my invitation, the genius that is David Tomaloff brought in for our September 2013 issue one of the most interesting and eclectic guest edited columns we have ever run. We were entirely thrilled. And in October, Canadian poet Jenna Butler was invited by Congeries Editor John Hoppenthaler to follow suit. Jenna delivered a fantastic collection of Canadian poets. Her column made a wonderful companion to the all Irish poets from Ireland and all Japanese poets from Japan guest edited columns we ran in previous years. We LOVE our guest edited column and look forward to having more time with the publishing schedule change to bring in a grip of talented guest editors for future issues. Thank you to David & Jenna for all the hard work and the stunning writing they brought in.
On the down side, it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to two of our Connotation Press family. Brittany Connolly, our Artisan Review column editor, has moved on to bigger and better things. I loved Brittany’s column, and hope to find another editor for it soon. I’m excited to see what art you create in the fascinating artistic genres you work in, divine Ms B. Good luck with all you do! And Senior Associate Poetry Editor JP Reese has also left us after a wonderful run vetting many of the poets we have published in the past couple of years. I will miss the skew of your perspective, Joani, and wish you all success and happiness. Thank you, ladies, for the hard work and dedication. I will certainly miss you both.
On the up side, we are proud and excited to welcome Paul Scot August to our editorial staff! Paul will be taking JP’s place as an Associate Poetry Editor working on the poetry column with Kaite & Julie. Paul will also be hosting our guest editor column with our Volume VI launch in September. We have been fans of Paul’s poetry, aesthetic, and work ethic for quite some time and we’re proud to have him with us.
Well, that’s about it. I think I’ve either covered or skirted just about everything I needed to on this note, which means it’s now time for my favorite part:
Connotation Press: An Online Artifact exists because of the incredibly talented and hardworking, all-volunteer, altruistic staff we have with us. My love and admiration goes out to each of you. I’ve said it before, I am proud to call you all dream mates, bonded believers, supporters of the clear and unwavering cause; you artsmiths of the highest order. You make all this possible.
Here is a list of our senior editorial staff with links to their year-end reviews:
John Hoppenthaler
Well, that’s about it, friends. Nothing to do now but revisit some mind-blowingly good writing, and writing about writing, and movies about writing, and writing about drinking while writing about writing, and travel.
Thank you to all our readers out there, you guys entirely rock. One of these days we’re going to have to have a huge party and you can all come and bring your writing and we’ll have readings and music and food made by people and, well, you get the picture. I’ll be the one looking forward to that group hug photo at the end. Oh, and BYOB!
And to those who trust us with their art, a trust that is never taken for granted, a trust we consider sacred and not just because we’re horrible heathens who have no working definition of the word, thank you for your continued belief in us and what we do. We are an artist first venture, and we have built this place for you. Thank you so much for showing us day after day how much you appreciate it.
Oh, and keep an eye out for some new columns coming this year. I’ve still got a few tricks up my gartered blousy mid-1800’s river boat gambler sleeve. Why I’m wearing a gartered blousy mid-1800’s river boat gambler sleeve is none of your damn business. Same goes for the green shade visor.
FIVE FREAKIN’ YEARS!!! WOOHOO!!! FIVE, FIVE, FIVE, FIVE, FIVE!!!!!
Connotation Press: Now Go On, Ya’ll!
All best,
Ken Robidoux
Publisher/Founding Editor-in-Chief
Connotation Press